The proposed research will investigate the impact of individual- and couple-level end-of-life planning on the economic, psychological and physical well-being of midlife men and women. End-of-life planning includes economic preparations (e.g., preparation of wills, life insurance), health-related preparations (e.g., advance directives, long-term care insurance), and psychological preparations (e.g., in-depth discussions with family members). The analyses will use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a sample survey of men and women who graduated Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and who were re-interviewed in 1964, 1975, and 1992-93. Our analyses will also use data obtained in the 2002 WLS: from the: (1) graduates; (2) their selected sibling; (3) the currently married spouses of the graduates and siblings; and (4) the widowed spouses of graduates and siblings who have died since 1992. Retrospective accounts of planning behavior will be obtained from widowed persons and respondents who have recently lost a parent, in order to explore linkages between past planning behavior and current well-being for persons who have already experienced death of a close relative. Specific hypotheses will be derived from two theoretical frameworks: a modified expectancy-value framework, and the stress paradigm. Our broad research objectives are to: (1) document the patterns and predictors of end-of-life planning strategies adopted by older adults and (2) evaluate the extent to which spouses accurately report one another's end-of-life preferences, and to identify the predictors of accurate reports. These research goals are critically important today, as public policies and medical technologies afford older adults greater control over when, how and where they will die. We will use multivariate techniques to test hypotheses derived from the specific aims.